


Can You See My Heart Beating?

by citrusfriend



Series: Poetry [27]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Parents, Anger, Bad Parenting, Blood and Gore, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Choosing to Live, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Pedophilia, Poetry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Self-Acceptance, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Violence, all of those metaphorically only, suicidal recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27590899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusfriend/pseuds/citrusfriend
Summary: Doesn't our marrow caress our carcass so prettily, Mom?The way our blood dries on cartilage almost looks like art.
Series: Poetry [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1320233





	Can You See My Heart Beating?

**Author's Note:**

> I really gotta start writing about something else lol

I have wanted to kill myself since I was eight years old,  
but I do not want to kill myself right now.  
That is important to me,  
because at almost-twenty, I want to live more often than I want to die.  
That is important to me, now.

But after a decade of suicidal ideation,  
I have perfected every pro and con behind my own death,  
and I do not disagree with my conclusions in it's favor.  
Every reason I have ever had to kill myself  
is still true, still real, still damning--  
except one:  
_I do not want to die,_ anymore.  
Therefore I do not.  
I don't think anyone around me quite understands this.  
Instead, they say that I have people who love me.  
They say I have people who care, who would grieve,  
as if that's enough to keep me here.  
It's not.

You are not enough.  
You never have been.  
I can say it sweeter,  
I can make it palatable,  
I can season it just right,  
but sociopathy seems so savory tonight.  
You are not enough.  
This is both a reason to kill myself and a reason to live.

You do not love me.  
You do not care about me,  
but you would grieve.  
It would come eleven years too late,  
but _god,_  
would you grieve.  
You would mourn yourself to annihilation for my sake,  
would crack your rib cage open and bleed _rivers_ in my memory.  
But you tore my rib cage open first,  
used my blood to carve your river's path,  
and you did it while I was still a child,  
so no, you do not love me,  
no matter how hard to choose to believe you do.

I do not love you and I do not care.  
Your potential grief passes by, unfelt, unmissed.  
Don't you know that wounds like _this_ scar,  
and scar tissue...  
Well, it never quite grows back nerves the _same,_ does it?

You took my soft skin from me,  
tore it from my bones to plaster onto your husband,  
just begging, pleading, covered in my blood like a disguise,  
that just maybe the touch of something pure  
would heal his decay,  
would stall his decomposition.  
But you forgot that the top layers of skin are _already dead,_  
so all you ever accomplished was building a beautiful mummy  
of rotting skin  
and a beautiful collection  
of skeleton children.

Doesn't our marrow caress our carcass so prettily, Mom?  
The way our blood dries on cartilage almost looks like art.  
Sociopathy seems so savory tonight.

Sometimes I wonder, you know,  
if it was all a lie.  
You do so love playing the victim,  
paying no heed to the corpses drying at your feet.  
Tell me, did you ever doubt yourself?  
Did you ever lie?  
Sometimes, I think I would admire you more if this was all manipulation.  
If my father was a more mediocre villain and an even more convenient scapegoat.  
On worse days,  
on the days I am suicidal again,  
I wonder if you were the pedophile instead.  
This is not rational.  
But who expects a dead man to have rational thinking?  
Trauma causes permanent damage to the brain, after all,  
so after this kind of betrayal,  
the neural pathways from _Love,_ from _Trust,_  
all run directly to Threat.

And now that my skin is gone, my blood has dried,  
I choose to live.  
Even if it is in this skeleton body--  
cracked rib cage and damaged brain,  
marrow sticking to the outside of bone,  
blood flaking off my cartilage like a child's collage--  
_I choose to live._  
I choose to love and trust and live,  
but I will do none of those things with you.

You are not enough.  
Sociopathy seems so savory tonight;  
what does it taste like to you?  
I've only ever swallowed it secondhand,  
but it was more than enough to convince me it was organic,  
so I'm sure you would know.  
_You are not enough._  
You never have been.  
This is a reason to kill myself,  
and, more importantly, a reason to _live._

**Author's Note:**

> 11/15/2020


End file.
